Music alone by Peter Kivy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Music alone by Peter Kivy - Essay Example Taking the example of sad music, it can be said that music is sad in its quality of having sadness as a solid property just like an egg has an oval shape and white color as apparent properties. This approach gives emotions a defined function. Hence, this essay tends to highlight how Kivy shows that music doesn’t arouse emotions rather it defines them i.e. what type of emotions does music make us experience. On pg 40-41, the stimulation model is not embraced by Kivy as it doesn’t account for the mental aspect of listening to music or relating to it. It can be understood from how Kivy illustrates though Tibby’s addiction and arousal. It is limited to arousal and feelings where as Kivy rightly believes that the mind is equally active while music listening. Arousal occurs like a sort of pleasure that is experienced with sugar or favorite foods or as Kivy says on p.40 â€Å"as drugs stimulate euphoria†. This does not answer the artistic or moral sense of suitab ility which makes it seem morally fitting that we hear serious music when serious while lighthearted music when lighthearted. If we look it through the perspective of Kivy, it is explained that the listeners and individuals say emotional utterances, such as "How amazing" or show movements like Mrs Munt taps her feet, but it is undoubtedly not these responses to music that the listeners are observing and analyzing in their minds. This does not occur â€Å"mindlessly†. These descriptions of music are cognitive but not emotive. For instance, a popular quote from Kivy is, "Sadness is a quality of the music, not a power of the music to do things to the listener" Kivy rejects stimulation model because it largely ignores the conscious and unconscious features of music listening that Kivy elaborates on pg.43. In the unconscious process, ‘expectations are aroused, fulfilled and frustrated’. The weaknesses of the stimulation model are the strengths on the representation model. The representational model of music paints a picture, imitates non musical sounds or tells a story in a song. All these aspects must be included to deduce pleasure from the integrated cognitive experience of music which is not limited to a stimulus for the nervous system. Simply put, the music becomes a cognitive experience because the listener like Tibby perceives the representation in music. The stimulation is on the right only if it has no content; this way it will have no meaning and the listener will have nothing to register or retrieve in his mind. In this light, the stimulation model is right in saying music arouses emotion but music without content. Kiv y verifies his stance yet again by extracting the intellectual aspect of ‘counting’ from Leibniz’s account p.38, (Kivy 1990). Kivy’s representational model is quite convincing especially when the reader reads the entire account in detail; if one applies the theory to different passages of music, one can clearly navigate the cognitive elements. The effect of music, as the stimulation suggests cannot be determined by the impact on the listeners’ sense organs. Emotions have their own physiological component and it cannot be confused as a result of music (Kivy 1990). Otherwise, the stimulation model just attempts to be reductionist in a sense, because it does not focus on the intellectual functioning that occurs during the listening of music especially repetitive listening or in the case of the infant as Kivy highlights

Immigration to the United States Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Immigration to the United States - Essay Example There have been numerous arguments and ideas put forth, both, by the supporters and critics of immigration to the United States. One of the arguments put forth by those who feel that there need to be restrictions placed on immigrations, is that immigrations dilute the superior composition of the society. They feel that the infusion of heterogeneous groups dilutes the superiority of their countrymen. Earlier, the Americans did not face any problem, doing jobs that were not really meant for the higher strata of the society. However, with the natives of other countries coming in, these jobs have been allocated to them. The Americans, now, have grown increasingly partial in accepting these jobs. This, has, therefore, led to the classification of work. In addition to this, they feel that the immigrants were assets earlier on; and have now transformed into liabilities. It is commonly felt that the immigrant work force is now large and has pushed the Americans out of the work force employed. They also feel that the immigrants are a menace to American ideals. On the other hand, there are th